


Run

by Paraxdisepink



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Canon Divergence, Car Sex, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Nathan is shot while revealing his powers to the world in Odessa, he and Peter flee the scene, only there’s some things they can’t run from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run

**Author's Note:**

> This was written during the Writer’s Strike hiatus before season 3 aired.

I lost the feeling in my arms and legs before I heard the shots. It felt that way at least. The panic washing over the station didn’t even register. When the pain spread through my chest all I could think about was Peter, holding onto him, focusing on his face to keep myself together long enough to fight for words my ears were ringing too badly to hear whether they came out or not. _I love you. Don’t trust Ma. Run away from the Company anywhere you can._

I must have blacked out. I wake up alone under a sheet somewhere in the cold. Outside, I realize, blue and orange lights flashing in my face and a radio crackling nearby. Police. I get it. They think I’m dead. I try to sit up, but they’ve got me strapped to a stretcher and I can barely twist my head enough to get a look at my chest. They cut my shirt open, and I can make out the blood on my skin but the wound’s gone. I don’t feel the burning anymore. I go cold all over. This isn’t natural. This isn’t how gunshot wounds work in the real world. But in the world I thought I understood people don’t fly or pick themselves up off the sidewalk after jumping through high-rise windows. People don’t shoot electricity from their hands either.

Electricity. Pete. What did you do?

He’s the one right out of those comic books he spent all his allowance on as a kid – minus the tights and cape, thank god. Who knows how many powers he’s absorbed in the past four months. Maybe raising the dead is one of them. But for all I know the Company’s got him already. My heart speeds up, and I struggle against the straps holding me down. I have to find him, keep him safe. No one’s taking Peter from me again.

“Peter!”

Footsteps. Someone’s running toward me. Maybe yelling wasn’t the best idea. The last thing I need is some nutjob from Primatech lurking around out here and finding out they didn’t finish the job. I’m not invincible. I’m not Peter. But then I hear his voice.

“Nathan . . .?” He’s choked up and he can’t believe what he’s seeing. The sheet falls away and he’s there leaning over me. I let out my breath. That’s twice in one day I’ve got him back. That lucky streak’s bound to run out soon. His face is wet, and I want to reach out and tell him everything’s okay now, but his eyes go wide and all of a sudden he smiles.

“You’re wound, Nathan, it’s gone.”

“Yeah,” I nod, my throat raw. Maybe I’m disappointed he’s so shocked. He’s not the one who saved me.

The patrol car lights turn his hair orange and blue, and I can see the thoughts racing through his mind. For a split second he’s not the demi-god who can defy time and death and gravity; he’s my little brother again, that dreamy kid so amazed by absolute nonsense he can barely slow down and articulate. “It must be Adam’s blood. You’re like us now - me and Claire. You can’t get hurt, Nathan.” I open my mouth to tell him we don’t know that, but he looks away over his shoulder where the police and paramedics must have given him time with the body. “We’ve gotta get you out of here.” He’s decisive now, nothing like the lost puppy I grew up with; he’s the guy who saves cheerleaders and destroys catastrophic viruses with his hands. “We’ve gotta do something.”

He doesn’t give me the chance to reason out what. Peter moves his fingers like a wizard in a kids’ movie and next I know we’re across the street, crouched against a coffee shop, watching officers and EMS personale look under and around the stretcher for the dead guy who just vanished into thin air. It’d be comical, in a horror movie, but my heart hasn’t slowed down any and I’m not laughing. Not when I look down, see brick and grass, and realize we’re invisible.

Peter’s not laughing either. He’s heavy against my side and breathing hard, and his arm’s around me so tight he’s practically choking me as though afraid of letting go. I know the feeling. I’m warm all over being close to him again, and after suffering radiation burns and two bullets to the chest the only thing that hurts is that I can’t look at him now.

He turns, and grabs a fistful of my open shirt. I feel his breath on my cheek and the panic surging through him. His heart’s beating too fast, and mine speeds up to match it. “Think you can fly, Nathan? I’ll keep us invisible and we’ll get out of here.”

I cringe just like always every time someone brings up what I can do. But if I was ready to announce it to the free world less than an hour ago then I’m not the guy to hold out now. I nod, and let Peter pull me to my feet. He puts his arms around my neck and I hold onto him tighter than I need to, and all I can think about as we float up into the sky and leave the lights and the commotion behind is that this time I’m not letting go.

We make it back home to New York in one piece. Peter doesn’t ask why the house is so empty or where Heidi and the boys are. He doesn’t say anything. I phone Ma, God knows why – a sense of duty I guess to let her know that no matter what the news says both her sons are alive. She tells us to get out of the house, and sends a limo after us of all things. Not my idea of a getaway car, but maybe with Peter’s powers it’s as good a place as any to think for a while. We need a plan. I’m not naïve enough to believe the Company won’t find out I survived and leave us alone.

The world falls silent when we get inside except for the hum of the motor. The adrenaline fades and my heart stops trying to jump out of my chest. I look over at Peter. We’re safe, we made it, and he’s right here. Four months, and I’ve got him back. There’s a million things to say. I thought I’d lost him. I thought . . .

He’s slouched in the corner, staring out the window, one leg stretched out on the black leather side seat. His arms are folded and he’s biting his lip, trying to huddle in on himself. At first I think he’s cold, but I know him better.

I inch closer and wrap my arm around his shoulders. “Pete, you okay?” I need to know what the Company did to him, if they hurt him, what happened in Ireland. I don’t have it in my power anymore to make them pay, but I can try.

Peter’s eyes flicker toward me, but that’s all the contact I get before he turns away again, this time staring down at his hands. Hands that shoot lightning bolts like a Greek god and have the power to blow up a major city. “I almost did something awful, Nathan,” he confesses, “back there in Odessa.”

I let my hand slide down his back as I turn to face him. We’ve been through this. He can’t blame himself for what almost happens. But he’s Peter, the kid who brought home every stray kitten he could find and the guy who threatens to vote Green on principle. He can’t stand to hurt anymore, so for him, I’ll say it as many times as he needs to hear.

“You got us out of there alive. Let’s leave it at that.”

His mouth tightens. He’s not convinced. I try not to sigh. Peter’s always been a bitch to reason with, and I see Primatech hasn’t conditioned that out of him.

“Adam, Nathan.” He looks up at me in earnest, his eyes big and conflicted. “All I could think about was Adam and how he’d healed you. I didn’t care about the virus or the stuff he’s done. I just wanted to find him so he could bring you back. I was gonna do it.”

He’s talking too fast. I want to touch his face, reassure him, but I don’t. He’s underestimating himself. He doesn’t need Adam to save me. He can turn back time for Christ’s sake. But I get what he’s telling me, and as much as it kills me to think about my little brother visiting disease and death upon humanity on my behalf I smile inside. Peter almost never tells me he loves me.

“It’s okay,” I tell him gently. “You weren’t the only one ready to do what you had to back there. I was going to shoot Parkman.”

Peter’s eyes get bigger, and he stares at me as though I’m incapable of wrongdoing. After Linderman, he of all people should know better. “Parkman?” he chokes on the name. “I don’t get it. Why Parkman?”

It’s my turn to look away. I don’t want to be the one to tell him this, but I promised no more secrets, and better he hear it from me than find out the hard way. But he’ll never find out the hard way, not with me around

“Ma,” I try to break it to him as easily as I can. “She told Parkman to shoot you in the head, if you got too dangerous.”

His mouth moves, and he looks down. It hurts, I know. But he’s always defended Ma and turned a blind eye to what she is. I can’t let him do that anymore if she’s prepared to kill him.

“Bullet to the head,” he mutters to the tops of his shoes. “No coming back from that one.”

I don’t ask where he heard that. It doesn’t matter because I’m not convinced it’s true. I’ve seen my daughter pull a shard of glass from his brain and he survived. Why should a bullet be any different?

“My own mother.” Peter’s gone back to staring at his hands, thinking about what he can do, what he almost did to New York City and rationalizing that she must be right, that Ma knows best. It doesn’t work, and he looks up at me, crushed like a truck’s hit him. Of course, with Peter, a truck would hurt less. “She said I was her favorite.” His eyes close, and I can’t take it anymore.

“Hey . . .” My arm slips back around him and before I know it my hand’s gone from rubbing his shoulder to sliding through his hair. For once, I miss those ridiculous bangs I’ve told him to cut so many times. I miss everything from before our lives went to hell. But it doesn’t matter. He’s here, he’s home, and I’d take him burned and mutilated if I had to. “It’s okay,” I murmur, and to my surprise Peter leans into me, his face warm against my neck. I can’t help burying my face in his hair and breathing in. He smells like blood – my blood – electricity, and the cold night air, but with him here against me I’m warmer than I’ve been in months.

He just lays there for the longest time, and when he turns to look at me he doesn’t pull back very far. His eyes are liquid, hurt but fixed on my face, and he’s close enough that if he still had that godawful hair it’d fall forward and brush against my cheek.

“I’m still your favorite, right, Nathan?” He smiles sadly. I don’t know why he thinks he has to ask.

I smile and hug him tighter. Were I a better brother, I’d tell him he’s too old to be so needy. But who am I kidding? I wouldn’t know who I am if Peter didn’t need me.

“’Course,” I assure him, and his forehead drops back onto my shoulder. “I love you,” I add, just in case the first part won’t convince him. He exhales. I feel the shudder of breath rushing out of him. All of a sudden I’m warmer than I should be – I’m tingling – and his arm’s wedging between me and the seat, sliding around my waist.

“I love you too,” he whispers. The heat of his breath against my neck sets my skin on fire. Peter doesn’t stop there. He stretches up where he’s still half folded in the corner of the car and presses his mouth right under my ear.

I freeze. For a moment all I hear is the hum of the car and my heart pounding. I’m used to Peter – holding him, kissing him – but this doesn’t feel like anything I’m used to; a shiver goes through me and there’s a distinct heat building in my lap.

My hands come up to Peter’s jacket and I try to push him away. My head’s not on straight, I tell myself. I can barely comprehend what I feel having him back and I’ve spent four months without any physical contact. I need a minute to get it together. A voice inside me reminds me this never happened with Parkman, but I do my best to ignore it.

Peter stiffens, and of all awful things that could happen now I realize he’s aware of my reaction. But instead of getting the hell away from me like he should, he’s suddenly determined. His leg slides across my lap, pinning me to the seat, and I’m left there pressing my back against the leather, straining to distance myself from the heat of his body as much as I can.

“Peter . . .” I close my eyes. Speaking makes it worse, calling attention to whatever it is that’s happening. No, I know what’s happening here, and it’s as horrifying to me as my own disfigured reflection in the mirror. I’m aroused by my own brother.

“Nathan . . .” His voice shakes. I squeeze my eyes tighter, but that doesn’t make this go away. I’m far too aware of his thigh against mine, and his mouth on my cheek now. I can’t live with how hot and soft it feels to me. “I know you want me, Nathan,” he breathes. “I can read your mind, remember?”

I go cold, pressed back against the seat as far I can get, my throat dry and the blood rushing fast between my legs. There’s anger too, at him and whatever he thinks he needs to prove cornering me like this, at whoever up there I can blame for these goddamn powers of his. At myself most of all. I’m sick, I need help. Deep down I want to exploit Peter just like everyone else. Maybe the best thing he ever did was get half a world away from me.

And Peter being Peter he can’t just make his point and let this go. He squirms closer and slides his other arm around my neck. “You don’t have to fight it, Nathan.” This is insane. Of course I have to fight it. It’s . . . “ It’s okay. I want you too.”

No. I shake my head. Peter doesn’t know what he wants; he never has. He’s been alone for four months and half that time he didn’t know who the hell he was. Probably remembered he loved some guy and got the wrong idea, or maybe the Company did something. Clearly he’s forgotten who I am, that I’m the one who protects him, who’d never let anyone take advantage.

My hands claw into the black fabric of his jacket and I try to shove him back just enough to look at him. It’s no good, not with him draped over me. All I can do is push myself back another quarter of an inch.

“You’re my brother,” I growl against his cheek. “We can’t.” My breathing’s more ragged than it should be, and the tingling in my lap hasn’t lessened any, not with him pressed right there, straddling me.

Peter ducks his head and his mouth’s under my ear again. I try not to shiver from the heat of it. “We aren’t normal, Nathan,” he argues. “We both know that.”

What are we, then? The Egyptians, demi-gods who can only pair sibling to sibling to keep our bloodline pure? If we set ourselves above everyone else than the world has every right to lock us up as a threat.

I jerk my head toward him to tell him that, but it’s a mistake. The car pushes him forward and his mouth brushes the corner of my own. I don’t know what comes over me, but I can’t help turning my head that last quarter inch and before I know it my mouth melts into his.

My insides knot. This can’t be happening. But no moral conditioning can stop the fire rushing through me or the absolute exhilaration as Peter’s mouth moves with mine. If I weren’t a coward and a sucker to temptation I’d fly away right through the window next to me, but Peter’s hand moves under my jaw to pull me closer, and my only thought is we’ve cheated death and gravity, why not a couple of taboos for a little while“

“Yeah, Nathan.” He pulls back just enough to nod, and I realize he’s picking thoughts from my head again. “Why not.”

The front window slams shut. Peter doesn’t even have to concentrate to move things anymore. Only then do I remember the driver. But I forget about him when Peter’s mouth latches onto mine again, harder, wetter, and more determined than ever.

There’s no stopping this. There’s no stopping myself, and with him half straddling my lap and clutching the back of my head with what has to be inhuman strength there’s sure as hell no stopping him no matter what I want. It doesn’t scare me. Maybe to others he’s some dangerous indomitable force that has to be eliminated for the greater good. But to me, he’s only Peter, and I’d gladly drown in him and let him take everything I’ve got.

He’s doing his best, and I’m not fighting him. My hands uncurl from his jacket to slide around his back and hug him to my chest. I don’t know who pushes who down, but next I know the seat’s creaking and I’m on top of him, pressing against him and wriggling up, trying to get closer.

“Nathan . . .” He grabs a fistful of my hair. The word’s hot and muffled and the air heavy between us. He’s begging me, for what I don’t know, but I do my best to give it to him. And maybe that’s all I’m made of, the moral code I’m trying to hold onto. Do whatever it takes to make Peter happy.

It doesn’t matter. He’s not my brother anymore. He’s the one my life fell to pieces without, the one I’m terrified of losing, and now I can’t get close enough to him and I don’t know how else to tell him but by pinning him down with my full weight, digging my fingers into his shoulders from underneath and grinding my mouth against his so hard his head sinks into the seat.

He manages to work his leg out from under me. Peter’s not tall, but, but he’s taller than the usual backseat partner – tall enough that he has to balance his foot against the door to fit. I wonder if he does it on purpose, cradles me between his legs at just the right angle for his crotch to press against mine. He pushes up, and I know he’s not an innocent kid anymore, but a guy who knows how to get what he wants. He’s hard and not ashamed judging by way he rubs against me. He’s . . .

He’s beautiful. I don’t remember thinking of him that way before. I always thought of him as too skinny, with a long puppyish face. I see it now though. He’s filled out – solid under my hands – and his eyes aren’t dreamy and pathetic anymore; they’re liquid pulling me in. He throws his head back, and my mouth slides to his neck, opening for soft skin I never thought I’d actually taste. It’s hot, and I can feel the blood beating through him, hungry and impatient. Peter lets out a rough sound and his hands creep down from my back, wedging their way inside the edge of my pants.

I jump when his fingers graze the back of my hips. The small touches we share always seemed so natural, but this, bare skin on skin . . . It’s more than I can take. The layers of clothes between us are more than I can take. I imagine clawing them off, stripping Peter naked, doing whatever it takes to kiss the life out of him.

My hips move on their own, my erection pounding wildly against his. I thrust down and he arches up to meet me, groaning like I’m hurting him. But I wouldn’t hurt him for the world. I just want to drink him in, devour him, maybe fuse the two of us together. He mutters something, and I dive for the skin behind his ear and start to suck. His hips push up again and somehow my mouth’s at his jaw and then my tongue’s inside him, sinking in wetness and warmth. I’m lightheaded, every ounce of blood in my body pulsing between my legs, the adrenaline rushing so strong I barely feel the sting of his fingernails against my hipbone. I only hear him breathing, moving with me in this half-crazed friction as though we’re both desperate to get as far as we can before conscience catches up to us.

“Nathan . . .” Peter sounds so fragile, panting against my mouth. He’s all powerful, and yet there’s still one thing he needs from me, something no girl from Ireland can give him. It’s too much, and before I know it I’m shuddering against him while his fingers dig into my skin and hold on for dear life.

He’s star-eyed when my vision clears. I roll off him just enough to prop myself on an elbow and watch him smile at me lop-sided like he’s half stoned and I’m the most amazing sight in the world. Maybe it feels good to be on the receiving end of that look again.

“Never knew you were such a good kisser, Nathan.”

My face gets hot. I didn’t expect that. “Peter . . .” I guess I should know better than to hope he would clam up and never speak of this so we could forget it ever happened. Not Peter. If he could do that, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

He’s still looking up at me, flat on his back and sucking in air, but the determination’s back in his face. “Don’t blame yourself for this. You saved the world, remember? You get to slip up once in a while.”

I frown. I’m pretty sure I’ve used up my share of slip-ups already. Instead of saving the world, I let him go, let him fall into the hands of the Company and worse. But he won’t stop smiling, and his eyes are soft when he reaches up and strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. “You’re my hero, Nathan,” he murmurs, just like he would when he was sixteen and I forged notes to his teacher’s so Ma wouldn’t catch him cutting class.

I surprise myself and let my fingers curl around the hand against my face, and when I lean down to kiss Peter’s cheek this time my mouth comes dangerously close to his. He just lies there, refusing to take his eyes off me, and there’s one thing Ma and the Company have to learn. It’s going to take more than a couple of bullets to keep the two of us apart.


End file.
